Don’t get me wrong here, Calgary Transit is pretty efficient and reliable. I can get to work in 40 minutes (including walking to the bus stop and walking from 7/7 to my office at 8/8) which is only about 15-20 minutes slower than driving. I just don’t like taking a bus and train to work. The bus ride is short – only about 5 minutes or so. The train is a little crowded for my tastes though. I don’t mind standing, I just hate being packed in like chickens being delivered to the slaughter house.
I left the house a bit earlier this morning, caught the 6:30am bus which connected with the 6:39am downtown train and it was far less packed than normal. I guess I will make this my “normal” routine until I get my Jeep back.
Coming home, the train is not very busy. I get on at one of the first stops so there is always a seat and then the bus is not busy either. I don’t really care to walk from the corner to my house, but that is just laziness, plain and simple.
I will find out about the Jeep today. I am waiting to hear (1) who pays for it and (2) how long it will take. The 2nd part of that may take a day or two to determine. They may start taking the engine apart and discover that it simply need a new Heisenberg Compensator. It may need a new engine, although I cannot imagine that. How can an entire engine go? I will admit, I know nothing about vehicles (or nearly nothing), but to me, that doesn’t make sense.
Part 1 (from above) is the more important factor to me. The Jeep is 3.5 years old and has 93000 some odd kilometres. So, it is under warranty in both of those scenarios. If Chrysler comes to me and for some reason says it isn’t under warranty, that will, well, it’ll “irk” me – to say the least. I guess I will fight that battle if I have to.
It reminds me of my warranty issue with my 2003 Grand AM GT.
I was driving to work one day and the front end started to shake – this is not normal for a vehicle that one has had for a few days so I took it in immediately.
A couple of hours later, I received a call from the service manager at the dealer that I purchased the vehicle at. She told me what was wrong – a cracked rim. Wow, I thought – how does that happen? The bad news – it isn’t covered under warranty… WHAT? I’ve had the vehicle for LESS THAN A WEEK. Not impressed, to say the least.
So, back to the dealership I go.
The service manager was NO help at all. The head mechanic said (off the record, which is now, 9 years later being recorded for the record) that he thought the damage was likely done when they were either loading or off-loading the car from the truck. The sales guy (a friend of mine) was unable to help. The owner said his hands were tied.
I had negotiated to be able to pay for a new rim (nearly $700) over a few pays so the owner was cooperative in that aspect.
In a happy coincidence, another friend of mine came into the dealership. I told him my story and he wasn’t happy with this either. He worked at GM at the time and was ordering two vehicles from this dealership on the day that he came in. This friend, the owner and I talked and my friend handed the two car orders to me and indicated to the owner that if I wasn’t happy by the end of the day that I was free to rip those orders up and he would get the vehicles elsewhere.
Well, the owners hands were now tied and I had the upper hand. What choice did he have? None I would say. He agreed to replace the rim for free. I don’t know if the dealership paid for it or if he tried to submit it as a warranty claim, all I know is that I got the rim for free.
I don’t think that a friend disguised as my Guardian Angel will be around this time, it is doubtful anyway so I am likely on my own.
It’s a fight that I will fight if needed. Wish me some luck…
Kevin's Ramblings... 